What an awesome experience! Driving out to California from Texas is not as far as many Elite anglers had to endure so I was able to capitalize and spend some time sightseeing on the way. My wife and I visited Yosemite National Park .... WOW! What an amazing place. While in the park we made sure to visit the giant sequoia trees and hike around the Mariposa Grove area. I was in 'awe' over the nature and scenery on the west coast. It's something I hope everyone can experience. As far as the fishing ... the west has some awesome bass to catch. I was looking forward to getting after it and moving up the AOY latter in the BASS Elite Series.
Practice:
I picked a fairly small area to cover during practice. I thought there would be sufficient fish in the middle delta from Frank's Tract to Mildred Island. There are several cuts and flooded islands to fish around in this section of the river. The wild card was going to be fishing time. The entire field was launching in Sacramento and we had a nearly 90 min run to get to the productive fishing waters of the Delta. We were only going to get about 5 hours of fishing time during the tournament days (typically we get about 8 hours) so that was going to be an interesting scenario. As I practiced I was finding a similar experience that occurred at Guntersville. It was not easy to get bites just fishing along the spawning areas. I had to resort to finding bedding bass and primarily sight fish them. I could catch a few on moving baits and flipping cover but it was not easy. The tide plays such a major factor in productive times for the fish to bite and I was not able to really dial it in. I was hoping a couple areas I found in pre-practice would be good for flipping and punching vegetation but I found most of those areas significantly changed during the 30-day off-limits period. I was going to have to rely on bed fishing the first day of the event and hope to find a way to catch a few more on the higher tides when I was unable to see the bass. Here we go!
Event Day 1: 5 Bass/14 lbs 3oz–55th place of 112
Wow ... what a crazy run! I had never seen a field of anglers run in unison so many miles before beginning to fish. BASS has an Internet program call BassTrak and it provides some information about fish catches in actual time during the tournament hours. The program never recorded a fish until almost 2 hours had passed from the first boat leaving the launch. Unbelievable! I ran to my best sight fish area and immediately began catching fish. I had a few bass located in a small area that were grouped together and provided me a couple quick bites. One of those bass was of decent size and the others were just mediocre ... but with the small window of opportunity to sight fish due to the tidal water fluctuation I was happy to get off to a quick start. As the day progressed I was finding several of the better quality fish I had found in practice were gone. I guess they did their business and moved out. It was surprising to see so many move off the beds because the water temps were still in the mid 60's and at that temperature it usually keeps them on their nest a bit longer. I ran back to Sacramento a little bit disturbed that I never really capitalized on any opportunities during the second half of the day. I felt the need to keep evolving some kind of pattern to continue catching fish at the same rate on Day 2.
Event Day 2: 5 Bass/12lbs 11oz–63rd place of 112
Sitting in 55th place after Day 1 had me encouraged to make the cut. Getting that one big bite would be the wild card ... again, nearly identical to my last event at Lake Guntersville. I decided to change up my tactics on Day 2 because I would have much more high tide in the morning hours and I would not be able to see those sight fish on the low tide until later in the day. To begin the day I ran all the way down to area know as Discovery Bay. I felt there was a good chance to catch some better than average sized fish I saw cruising in practice on a swimbiat. I arrived there in about 95 minutes from the time I took off from Sacramento. Immediately I began catching fish on a swimbait ... just as I thought. Problem was the size. They were all in the 1-2 lb class. I wasn't getting those bigger fish I had anticipated. After about 2 hours fishing in Discovery Bay and catching a small limit of about 8-9 lbs. I had to move and look for sight fish as the tide began to recede. I decided to stop in Mildred and look for spawners. I saw several and would catch anything I thought would give me at least a 1/2 lb additional weight. I was up to about 12lbs and saw several bigger fish. Again I had difficultly getting them to bite. One in particular I knew would be my 'Cut' fish. It was about a 6-7 lber and was totally locked on a bed with a small male. I sat on her for nearly 45 minutes trying everything I could to get her to bite. ... I never had any luck. I decided to go ahead and catch the male as I was running out of time. My hope was for the female to become more aggressive once the male was caught. As soon as I caught the male ... the big girl swims off and was never to return. I was watching a $10,000 payday swim off ... frustrated and needed to return to Sacramento I got on plane ran nearly 90 minutes back to weigh-in a miserable 12 lbs and change.
Event Total - 10 Bass / 26lbs 14oz / 63rd place of 112
I missed the cut by 1lb 4 oz. Crazy close! Hindsight being 20/20 I probably could have upgraded a few lbs by just continuing my bed fish search instead of sitting on the 6-7lber for 45 min. But at the same time ... I catch that fish and I am golden. Who knows what the right call is ... bottom line I have been so close in these last 2 events to making the cut to only come up short. It tells me I'm right there and just a few breaks can put me right into the mix instead of just outside the cut.
I picked a fairly small area to cover during practice. I thought there would be sufficient fish in the middle delta from Frank's Tract to Mildred Island. There are several cuts and flooded islands to fish around in this section of the river. The wild card was going to be fishing time. The entire field was launching in Sacramento and we had a nearly 90 min run to get to the productive fishing waters of the Delta. We were only going to get about 5 hours of fishing time during the tournament days (typically we get about 8 hours) so that was going to be an interesting scenario. As I practiced I was finding a similar experience that occurred at Guntersville. It was not easy to get bites just fishing along the spawning areas. I had to resort to finding bedding bass and primarily sight fish them. I could catch a few on moving baits and flipping cover but it was not easy. The tide plays such a major factor in productive times for the fish to bite and I was not able to really dial it in. I was hoping a couple areas I found in pre-practice would be good for flipping and punching vegetation but I found most of those areas significantly changed during the 30-day off-limits period. I was going to have to rely on bed fishing the first day of the event and hope to find a way to catch a few more on the higher tides when I was unable to see the bass. Here we go!
Sitting in 55th place after Day 1 had me encouraged to make the cut. Getting that one big bite would be the wild card ... again, nearly identical to my last event at Lake Guntersville. I decided to change up my tactics on Day 2 because I would have much more high tide in the morning hours and I would not be able to see those sight fish on the low tide until later in the day. To begin the day I ran all the way down to area know as Discovery Bay. I felt there was a good chance to catch some better than average sized fish I saw cruising in practice on a swimbiat. I arrived there in about 95 minutes from the time I took off from Sacramento. Immediately I began catching fish on a swimbait ... just as I thought. Problem was the size. They were all in the 1-2 lb class. I wasn't getting those bigger fish I had anticipated. After about 2 hours fishing in Discovery Bay and catching a small limit of about 8-9 lbs. I had to move and look for sight fish as the tide began to recede. I decided to stop in Mildred and look for spawners. I saw several and would catch anything I thought would give me at least a 1/2 lb additional weight. I was up to about 12lbs and saw several bigger fish. Again I had difficultly getting them to bite. One in particular I knew would be my 'Cut' fish. It was about a 6-7 lber and was totally locked on a bed with a small male. I sat on her for nearly 45 minutes trying everything I could to get her to bite. ... I never had any luck. I decided to go ahead and catch the male as I was running out of time. My hope was for the female to become more aggressive once the male was caught. As soon as I caught the male ... the big girl swims off and was never to return. I was watching a $10,000 payday swim off ... frustrated and needed to return to Sacramento I got on plane ran nearly 90 minutes back to weigh-in a miserable 12 lbs and change.
